Fact check: Jesus rose from the dead
Fact check: Jesus rose from the dead
There is good evidence that the resurrection is a historical fact.
Happy Easter!
There is very good historical evidence that Jesus’ resurrection really happened.
Thomas did not initially believe the disciples’ account of Jesus’ resurrection; it was not until he saw Jesus that he believed.
Now Thomas called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails have been, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.”
Eight days later, His disciples were once again inside with the doors locked, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
And at the end of the day, our faith and trust in Jesus is about more than facts – it’s about knowing Him and having life in His name.
Even so, there are many facts about the bodily resurrection of Jesus that indicate that it was a historical event that actually happened two thousand years ago.
C.S.Lewis, in Surprised by Joy, recalls an event that shook up his atheism:
Early in 1926 the hardest boiled of all the atheists I ever knew sat in my room on the other side of the fire and remarked that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was really surprisingly good. "Rum thing," he went on. "All that stuff of Frazer's about the Dying God. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it had really happened once." To understand the shattering impact of it, you would need to know the man (who has certainly never since shown any interest in Christianity). If he, the cynic of cynics, the toughest of the toughs, were not--as I would still have put it--"safe", where could I turn? Was there then no escape?
Before we discuss the resurrection, it is probably important to reflect on the historicity of the New Testament. Many people think the Bible is like ‘Chinese whispers’ (‘the telephone game’ is probably a less offensive term) - but the fact is, we have complete copies of the New Testament in the original Greek language from the mid 300s AD. Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus from the 400s.
And there are also thousands of incomplete manuscripts and fragments, the earliest of which (a fragment of the gospel of Mark) dates back to the first century, when the apostles were still alive, as well as over a million lectionary readings and sermons from the Church Fathers quoting Biblical passages. There are also early translations into Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and other languages. And while there are some small differences between manuscripts, most of them are spelling differences, differences that are obviously mistakes, and word order changes that don’t effect the meaning (the Greek language, with grammar based on word endings rather than syntax, is very resistant to such changes). There are no differences between these early manuscripts that challenge any of the main assertions of the gospels, including the resurrection.
Daniel Wallace, the director of the Centre for the Study of the New Testament Documents which has digitised many of these important documents and put them online, in this interview, goes into more detail.
What is important to realise as well is that many of the places mentioned in the New Testament have been identified by archaeologists, who have been looking for these places since the Nineteenth Century. Before this, many of the more important locations mentioned in the New Testament were places of pilgrimage, such as the Tomb where Jesus lay, which is called the ‘Church of the Holy Sepulchre’, the Garden of Gethsemane, and many other places. Today, due to this sustained effort by archaeologists, many, perhaps most, of the locations mentioned in the New Testament are known – even some of the more obscure places such as the Capernaum Synagogue, and the pool of Bethesda, which nineteenth century textual critics said could not exist; what Graeco Roman pool would have five porticoes? (John 5:2) It was eventually found by German archaeologist Conrad Schick in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem – it was a square pool, divided in two, so that there were indeed five porticoes.
There have also been many inscriptions found that verify the existence of people and events mentioned in the New Testament. Numerous inscriptions have been discovered referring to the Sergius Paulus the Proconsul on Cyprus, mentioned in Acts 13, whom Paul led to faith.
The “Nazareth Inscription” is a rather intriguing stone acquired by Wilhelm Froeher in 1878, which bears the following inscription:
Edict of Caesar
It is my decision [concerning] graves and tombs—whoever has made them for the religious observances of parents, or children, or household members—that these remain undisturbed forever. But if anyone legally charges that another person has destroyed, or has in any manner extracted those who have been buried, or has moved with wicked intent those who have been buried to other places, committing a crime against them, or has moved sepulchre-sealing stones, against such a person, I order that a judicial tribunal be created, just as [is done] concerning the gods in human religious observances, even more so will it be obligatory to treat with honor those who have been entombed. You are absolutely not to allow anyone to move [those who have been entombed]. But if [someone does], I wish that [violator] to suffer capital punishment under the title of tomb-breaker.
While there is some debate about the origin of the stone, it appears that it could be a reference to the lie that the Jewish leaders concocted and then deliberately spread that Jesus’ disciples stole the body (Mt 28:13-15)
The writings of Josephus in the first century confirm much of the historical background of the gospels as well, and give more information about figures such as Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, the high priest. Philo also mentions Pilate. Tacitus mentions that “Christus” was executed under Pontius Pilate, in the context of a passage about the early Christians being accused by Nero for the Fire of Rome.
Even the sea journeys of Paul from Acts and Paul’s Epistles have been studied; both the locations mentioned and the times of year that the Mediterranean winds were favourable.
So when we look at the New Testament, we are looking at well attested historical documents, where the background and context is known, referring to real events. If anyone should doubt this, it is worth comparing the New Testament accounts of Jesus to some of the later, fictional apocryphal gospel accounts, such as those in the gospel of Thomas or the gospel of Peter, which do not demonstrate either historical context or the down-to-earth, believable portrayals of real people seen in the real gospels.
“Apostolic authority,” by the way, was the method by which the bishops of the early church verified the genuineness of the New Testament documents. If a document was considered genuine, it was because the bishop Irenaeus (to use an early example) was a disciple of John the apostle, and Irenaeus said that John said this document was genuine. It’s a surprisingly modern method of verifying authenticity, because the apostles were officially the eye-witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus. (Acts 1:22)
And when considering the apostles – the eleven disciples of Jesus who witnessed the resurrection – all of them died as martyrs, executed by the Roman authorities or the Jewish leaders, except John the apostle. John was the only one who died a natural death.
If they were mistaken or lying about the resurrection one can hardly imagine them giving their lives for it. Under the threat of torture and death, surely one of them would have spilled the beans.
Pascal, writing 1670 in Penseés, had the same thought:
800
Proof of Jesus Christ.—The supposition that the apostles were impostors is very absurd. Let us think it out. Let us imagine those twelve men, assembled after the death of Jesus Christ, plotting to say that He was risen. By this they attack all the powers. The heart of man is strangely inclined to fickleness, to change, to promises, to gain. However little any of them might have been led astray by all these attractions, nay more, by the fear of prisons, tortures, and death, they’d have been lost. Let us follow up this thought.
801
The apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition has difficulties; for it is not possible to mistake a man raised from the dead ...
While Jesus Christ was with them, He could sustain them. But, after that, if He did not appear to them, who inspired them to act?
The New Testament has a very realistic picture of the mood of the apostles after Jesus’ execution. They are depicted as frightened, hiding in the upper room where they had held the last supper, afraid even to go outside or do anything.
Then something changed and they are preaching fearlessly in the public square, and willing to die.
“Who Moved the Stone” is another question, the author Frank Morison asks – he was a trial lawyer and was skeptical about the resurrection of Jesus. He expected to find collusion between the gospel accounts, but instead found what he always found in trials where the witnesses were bearing witness to true events: small inconsequential differences between the various testimonies, but a kernel of truth that they all agreed on. He began writing a book to debunk the gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, and ended up writing a book that lays out the evidence that it really happened.
In particular, Morison finds the question of who moved the heavy stone that sealed the tomb of Jesus intriguing and inexplicable apart from the resurrection. You see, the penalty for falling asleep while on duty for a Roman guard was death.
“Sir,” they said, “we remember that while He was alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order that the tomb be secured until the third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come and steal Him away and tell the people He has risen from the dead. And this last deception would be worse than the first.” “You have a guard,” Pilate said. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and secured the tomb by sealing the stone and posting the guard. Matthew 27:63-65
The story that was spread around afterwards, that the guards fell asleep and the disciples stole Jesus’ body, simply doesn’t bear any scrutiny at all. If the guards really fell asleep, they would have been executed. Instead, they spread the false story.
In Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians, a document that is acknowledged even by the most skeptical scholars to have been written very early, he lists the resurrection appearances of Jesus.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth. 1 Corinthians 15:1-8
If Paul was lying about any of this, there would be no church today. He is essentially saying to the early Christians, if you doubt any of what I’m saying about the resurrection of Jesus, go and ask these people. They are in your churches (the Jerusalem Christians were dispersed through the cities after early persecutions, one of the reasons for the quick spread of the gospel throughout the Roman Empire), you can go and ask them. Go and talk to Peter and the other apostles. Those people are still living - if you doubt this, go and ask them.
How could the early church have survived if this was all lies?
William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas are two scholars who have much more to say about this subject, if you wish to read more. Gary Habermas has written some excellent books detailing the evidence for Christ’s resurrection. He has a great website.
F F Bruce’s books deal with the historicity of the New Testament Documents, and while his books are quite old everything he said still stands; I really enjoy reading them. Daniel Wallace is a modern expert on these issues; so many New Testament manuscripts have been found now and the text is very solid. The Case for Christ by journalist Lee Strobel is an accessible collection of articles about the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, etc.
I would encourage you to approach the subject with an open mind, because Jesus’ resurrection changes everything about life and the future and the hope we can have in a loving God who has never abandoned us.
ADDENDUM: GARY HABERMAS RESPONDS TO JORDAN PETERSON
This is a short video of Gary Habermas responding to Jordan Peterson’s view of the resurrection.
change log
17 Apr 2022 12:01pm fixed a few small errors, and added Lee Strobel to the list at the end of the article.